With more than 770,000 customers in the past year, the Duval County Tax Collector’s Office is where most people interact with local government.
While each person’s transaction is different, what they all have in common is waiting their turn at the customer service window after they check in at the front desk and “take a number.”
In an effort to reduce the wait time, Duval County Tax Collector Jim Overton is proposing the acquisition of a smartphone app-based queuing system that would allow customers to take a number before they arrive at their chosen branch office.
Ordinance 2019-418, if approved by City Council, would appropriate $391,100 from the tax collector’s budget balance to prepay for four years of a “new modernized queuing system.”
The legislation specifies that the appropriation is for procurement of a queuing system that will “improve customer service and add needed functionality for nine branch locations, including virtual queuing, analytics and reporting, kiosk software, management software, reconfiguration tools, an Android and Apple app that allows customers to join the line virtually or make an appointment, two-way SMS text notifications to customers and a remote kiosk.”
After accessing the system with the app or on the tax collector’s web page, the customer enters their smartphone number, chooses the branch office they’d like to visit and the type of transaction they wish to conduct.
The system advises the customer of the current wait time and allows the customer to get in line, virtually, before they head to the branch. It also can update customers with a text message when they are about to reach the front of the line.
Overton said the system will allow people to spend less time in the waiting room before they can begin their transaction.
“We want to help our customers manage their time,” he said.
A similar system was installed in the Orange County Tax Collector’s Office more than three years ago.
“We’ve had a very good experience,” said Orange County spokesman Mark Pafford.
“You don’t have to be at the tax collector’s office to get your number. Everything is computerized. The customer tells us what they need and the system puts them in the proper line. Taxpayers enjoy the system because their wait times are down. Fifty percent (who use the app) wait less than 15 minutes,” he said.
Overton said reducing wait time is the request he hears most often from customers when he visits a branch office.
“We are making slow and steady improvements,” he said.
